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Sammy Davis Jr. Memories
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Of the several encounters I had with Sammy Davis, Jr. few had the sudden electricity of our backstage meeting after his April 11, 1987 gig at the Chicago Theatre.
[That was the Sammy-Sarah Vaughn package show where Sammy accented "I've Got To Be Me" by walking over to the piano and dipping his hand in a fish bowl. One by one, he picked out sparkling jeweled rings and placed them on his fingers. He stopped at six.]
A bunch of us bought tickets through group sales and had a pre-Sammy party at the 1944 St. Louis Browns bar, which like Sammy, is gone but not forgotten. As special guests, I invited Norman Jackson and his wife Deborah. Norman Jackson was a Sammy impersonator from Des Plaines whom I met while judging a celebrity look-alike contest fot the Chicago Film Festival.
He even had a white wife!
Norman and Deborah had never seen Sammy before and were quite excited about the event, despite all our Ocean's Eleven debauchery. Norman asked if he could meet Sammy. I told him I'd do the best I could, although I knew even then that Sammy wasn't in the best of health. Earlier in the week he had canceled his scheduled appearance as the opening day National Anthem singer at Wrigley Field. Now, that would have been a moment.
But I was able to get our Sammy backstage to meet the real Sammy and the real Sammy was real surprised. With a crooked smile bojangling out from under a black fedora the real Sammy grabbed the cheek of our Sammy. He looked at me eye to eye as he gently shaked Norman's cheek and said, "You're right (about the resemblance), but he's (about skin color) a little lighter." Norman loved it. I presume Deborah went home with her Sammy, otherwise we're on to a Weekly World News scoop here.
In November, 1987 the story got better.
Dean Martin was performing at the Chicago Theatre and Frank Sinatra happened to be in town. The real Sammy was undergoing a hip operation and I was in New York on assignment for the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspaper for which I work.
I got an early morning wake-up call, figuring it was some bored editor making sure I was still alive. Instead, it was the Chicago Theatre people wanting to get in touch with our Sammy, who was a book packer at Follett Publishing in Chicago. Sinatra had gotten wind of our backstage meeting and he wanted to bring our Sammy along for a surprise walk-on for Dean.
Wild, man, wild.
I gave them Norman's number and Sinatra hired him. That night Francis Albert and Norman (with rings on all fingers but thumbs) walked on in tandem, and while Dean didn't fall for the Sammy bait, the reviewer for the Chicago Tribune did, writing that "Sammy Davis, Jr. was there too, looking, sadly enough, much the worse for wear and not singing at all." The mighty Trib had to print a correction, much to my delight. I only wish I had been in town.
So think of all the things you like in life. Jack McDowell. Arthur Alexander. Good sex. Charles Bukowski. Then double it. That's what these Sammy moments are all about for me.